Moline's Musings

Good Night for Illini

Posted by: Brian Moline

Sunday, February 8, 2009 11:30 AM

The #9 Fighting Illini wrestling team won six of ten matches, and also racked up bonus points at three weights to take care of #16 Northwestern 22-13 at Huff Gym Friday night.  The biggest surprise of the night came when true freshman Jordan Blanton moved up a weight class to wrestle Northwestern's John Schoen, and came away with an impressive 11-4 victory.  Blanton wrestled in place of Patrick Bond, who was suffering from flu-like symptoms.  It was the second straight dual that Bond missed because of illness, as Jake Norman wrestled at 197 last week against Purdue.

Friday night's dual featured only one match between two ranked wrestlers, and Illinois came away with the victory there.  #2 Mike Poeta was able to wear down Northwestern's true freshman #14 Jason Welch after a scoreless first period, on the way to a 9-4 victory.  Poeta didn't give up a takedown in the bout, as all of Welch's points came on escapes.  Welch was one of the most sought-after recruits in the nation in the 2008 class, and you can see the talent that he has.  Watching the Big Ten Network's television rebroadcast yesterday, analyst Mark Masry pointed out rather aptly that it appeared Poeta was wrestling a version of himself from four years ago.  As you'd expect, the veteran version won out.

With Blanton moving up a weight, that gave redshirt sophomore Ben Friedl the unenviable task of going up against Northwestern's top-ranked Jake Herbert at 184 lb.  Herbert came into the match with a 21-0 record this season, twelve of those wins coming by pin.  Friedl did a nice job staying off his back during the match, and Northwestern only got four team points in Herbert's 23-9 major decision, instead of the five (technical fall) or six (pin) points they easily could have earned.

Illinois closed out the dual in impressive fashion, as #10 John Wise was agressive from the opening whistle en route to a 15-0 technical fall victory over Northwestern's true freshman Paul Rands.  Wise used three different three-point near-fall scores to go with a pair of takedowns, an escape and a stalling point to rack up the tech in just 4:05.

Also picking up major decisions for the Illini were #3 Jimmy Kennedy and John Dergo.  Roger Smith-Bergsrud used a last-second takedown for the second match in a row to pick up his 3-1 win over NU's Dominic Marella. 

I neglected to do my predictions on Friday for the weekend.  As I'm writing this blog, it's just after 11 am central time on Sunday, so I'll make some predictions for today's duals in the Big Ten.  I went 6-1-1 with last week's predictions, which brings my season prognostication record to 13-3-3.  Here's what's on tap for today (winners in bold):

Illinois at Wisconsin

Iowa at Penn State

Michigan at Michigan State

Northwestern at Minnesota

Purdue at Ohio State

Bonus points could very easily be the difference in the Illinois-Wisconsin dual.  Wisconsin has five wrestlers who are ranked pretty high, and five wrestlers who really struggle.  If it comes down to bonus points, the Illini should have the edge. 

Penn State has no wrestlers who are ranked higher than their counterparts from Iowa.  The Nittany Lions are also banged up.  This one could be ugly.

Michigan appears to have a pretty solid edge over Michigan State.  This one is in East Lansing, so the Spartans might make it interesting, but they'll be hard-pressed to repeat their win over Wisconsin last week.

The Precin-Sanders matchup at 125 pounds should be a good one in the Northwestern-Minnesota dual, and the Sulzer-Thorn match at 141 also looks pretty good on paper.  Minnesota lacks the star power of a Jake Herbert, but their team is more balanced top to bottom.  The Gophers are coming off a win at Ohio State last weekend, and should be able to take care of the Cats at home.

Speaking of Ohio State, they didn't have a particularly strong weekend last week, dropping the Minnesota dual and squeaking past Indiana.  The Buckeyes shouldn't have as much difficulty with Purdue.  The best matchup here is at 149, where #4 Lance Palmer takes on #7 Jake Patacsil. 

Thanks for reading.  Talk to you soon.

bmoline@wdws.com

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